


The leaving kind

by BayHendrix



Series: Kissed by fire [16]
Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Complicated Relationships, Gen, Marriage of Convenience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-18 14:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21728665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BayHendrix/pseuds/BayHendrix
Summary: His wife makes it easy for him to love her. She has given him three daughters. And although they will never be Gyda in his old age their laughter and smiles give him great joy. Diana is fierce and she is stubborn. Ragnar suspects she could bend the gods if she so willed it.He loves her. Like a friend and a confidante. But never like a lover. Not like the steady flame for Lagertha that refuses to die. Over ten years he has watched her transform from a scared and scarred little girl to a mother capable of almost anything.He may be old but he is not blind. He would have to be a fool to see how his wife is the things that both draws and repels Ivar to Kattegat over the years. A love like that is not an easy thing to ignore.
Relationships: Ivar (Vikings)/Original Female Character(s), Lagertha/Ragnar Lothbrok, Ragnar Lothbrok & Original Female Character
Series: Kissed by fire [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/743637
Kudos: 20





	The leaving kind

The sun is beginning to set and Ragnar can feel the weariness settling into his bones. It is a celebration on the longest day of the year. A celebration of life and a feast where all are welcome. Children are laughing and parents dancing and warriors drinking their weight in mead. Ragnar misses Rollo and Athelstan on days like this. They should be here with him. Instead one is dead and the other has become a shade of himself an ocean away. 

He hears his daughter laugh and sees his wife dancing with her across the the clearing. Diana has her hair loose. The front is braided away from her face leaving the rest of her red waves dancing around her. The light of the setting sun and the fires make her freckles stand out and her hazel eyes blaze. In her arms almost three year old Seren has her arms around her neck and is laughing in abandon. A few feet away five year old Astrid is swaying with her uncle Hvitserk. And nine year old Freya is sitting to the side at a table, one of many brought outside so they could celebrate in nature and be close to the gods. 

Freya is watching them all with those eyes. Her left eye is the Lothbrok blue with the right is the hazel of her mother. His eldest daughter is mercurial on a good day. Her temper is legendary and her tongue just as sharp. But those whom she cares for she will love to the death. At Freya's side sits Judith. Her hair may be streaked with grey but the woman is still beautiful. The woman whom Athelstan loved. Who bore his son. And who was forced to watch him die along with her husband. Judith loves Diana and her girls with everything she has left. This Christian woman who even after a decade in Kattegat still wears her cross has made a place for herself as a healer. She delivers the babies and has poisoned more than one husband who dared to raise his hand. But Ragnar has always protected her. Diana loves her fiercely and in the memory of Athelstan. 

Lagertha sits nearby talking to Torvi and watching her grandchildren play and dance. Her hair is mostly white now but Ragnar still loves her. That fire will never stop burning. It is something he has come to accept. He never knows if she feels the same. All he knows is every time Diana has given him a child Lagertha stays away and look at him with something he can not name in her eyes. 

The music ends and Diana holds Seren with one hand while Astrid grabs the other. His wife heads over to Freya and Judith. Seren goes to Judith's lap while Astrid crawls between her sister and grandmother on the bench. And his wife bends down to kiss her eldest on the head. Freya rolls her eyes but she beams under the love in her mother's eyes. All of his daughters love their mother the most.

Ragnar knows they love him. They come to him to chase away the monsters and for comfort during a loud storm. But it's with Diana their love blooms into something grand and terrible and beautiful. It is with their mother the sun rises and sets. 

Freya turns her heads before her mouth descends into a frown. She is looking at Ivar with disdain and a sneer. His son and daughter have gotten along. Ivar is always drifting away from Kattegat to wage war and returning when it is done. Diana says it is because her has never let the girls know him. But Raganr wonders if Freya sees what he sees. 

Even now his son is looking at his wife with a hunger in his eyes. A hunger that he disguises with biting comments and blistering scowl. But Ragnar knows better. Behind it all lies a love that scares his son. 

Seren says something and Diana throws her head back laughing. And by doing so she exposes her scar. It begins by her left ear and goes to the back of her neck. It is almost eleven years old and it has gone with age but still it is clearly noticeable. It is the mark that shows how close she came to death before she and Judith escaped along with the survivors of the settlement in Wessex before fleeing to Kattegat.

as she laughs Ivar looks at her with almost a childlike wonder before he shutters his eyes and angrily drinks his ale. He hides it so well. But Ragnar knows. And he wonders if he wife sees it as well and if she is just as good at hiding behind those hazel eyes. 


End file.
